Collapsible and highly flexible product bags or pouches have become common in different industries for containing a variety of food, beverage, personal care or household care or other similar products. Such product bags can be used alone to allow a user to manually squeeze and dispense a product from the bag or the product bags may be utilized in combination with a pressurized can and product, for example an aerosol. Such product bags and valves contained in and used with aerosol cans are generally referred to in the aerosol dispensing industry as bag-on-valve technology. These product bags, valves and cans may be designed to receive and dispense a desired product in either a liquid or semi-liquid form which have a consistency so as to be able to be expelled from the valve or outlet when desired by the user.
It is known to utilize a product dispenser, such as a can, which has the collapsible product bag inserted therein, usually in a rolled up manner, and from which a filling/dispensing valve communicating with the inside of the product bag is affixed in a mounting cup portion of the valve and the mounting cup is attached to the can. During a final manufacturing phase, a product bag, having the valve secured thereto by a fitment, is generally in a rolled up configuration and the valve body is connected to a mounting cup. The rolled up product bag is inserted into or through the top of a product dispensing can and the mounting cup is secured to a rim of the can or container.
In a filling process, a desired product is inserted into the product bag via the two-way valve by appropriate filling means. When the bag is filled by the filling mechanism, the product bag expands inside the can. At some point in the manufacturing process, the can is further provided with a pressurized gas in order to assist in squeezing the bag to expel the contents thereof as known in the art. These filling procedures place a significant stress on the bag and particularly on the bag at the point where the bag seam joins or is sealed or welded with the valve fitment. An issue with the numerous known bag products on the market is that the stresses, described above, can lead to leakage around the seal or weld of the product bag and the fitment of the valve body.
The creation of this seal or weld between the bag and the valve fitment has been addressed in the past by a diamond or wedge shaped, angled fitment as disclosed in Davies et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,169,037. This wedge shaped valve connector is defined by four distinct planar sides where each planar side is welded to a respective portion of the inside of the product bag. Additionally, this connector is spaced from the valve body by an elongate axially directed extender. Such an extender can lead to particular problems in aligning the fitment with the appropriate seam or seal section of the bag. Besides this, the solid wedge shape of such fitments provides a planar surface which often does not seal properly with the edges of the bag because of manufacturing issues, for example overheating of the planar surfaces.
The problem associated with such planar sides and sharp angles of such a connector or fitment is that of heating the flexible product bag material in order to obtain an adequate seal across the whole surface area of each planar side. Providing such heat over the whole planar surface is slow and takes a certain dwell time to sufficiently heat the entire surface. Furthermore, the longer the heating platen or sealing device is in contact with or dwells on the gab and fitment, the more risk there is of overheating. Such overheating can lead to the bag tearing free from the connector and hence leakage occurring at the seal or weld between the product bag and the fitment.
It has been previously known in the art to use horizontally extending ribs to engage with the sides of the bag, for instance in U.S. Pat. No. 5,823,383 to Georg Menshen GmbH & Co. KG, of Germany. However, the particular design of these connectors has generally been for refill type applications for liquid soaps and detergents and has not been intended for higher pressure aerosol dispensing situations.